CUSTOMS PROBE: Nigerian Senate begins probe of customs

The Nigerian Senate has commenced a comprehensive probe of the activities of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) with a view to blocking all sources of revenue leakages. This decision was taken by the Senate committee on customs and excise to look at way to increase revenue generation capacity of the service. The chairman of the committee, Senator Hope Uzodimma during an oversight visit to the headquarters of the NCS in Abuja said that service should be generating enough revenue to fund the nation’s budget. He expressed dissatisfaction over a report by the ministry of finance which showed that the custom service had generated less than N400 billion in 2016. “All we are interested in doing is to bring up a robust position that will help the NCS earn more revenue. “In order to do that effectively we are looking at their current modus operandi with a view to refining how things are done so that more revenue can accrue to the service. “By the time we look at the operations of some of these ports, we will come back and look at how best to amend and alter the existing Act. “We want to create a document that will be bold enough to earn the country the kind of revenue we are looking fro from non-oil sector,” he said. Speaking on the revelation that oil majors were not accessible to the Service for payment of levies, the senator said that those are some of the areas that require enabling laws. “There are some limitations that has not made it possible for Customs to perform the way they should according to their mandate. “Those are things that we will also look at and remove all obstacles to enable them function effectively,” he said. Speaking with the Comptroller-General of the Service, Colonel Hameed Ali (rtd), the committee requested the submission of certain relevant document to enhance the probe. It gave the commission till Friday, October 28, to submit the requested documents and answer all the queries posed. Ali assured the committee of the full cooperation of the service directing his officials to provide the committee with all the information it required. The minister of finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, has criticized the high of corruption in customs and other agencies. She said that government’s efforts of realizing money from such agencies were being vulnerable by high-level corruption. Adeosun further described some staff of Nigerian Customs Service, as “cohesive crooks hard to break.”